Killing Bliss Read Free Page A

of her eyes, the same look he'd seen so often in Dana's, unyielding and impermeable: the light of hope, the endless, lingering hope that rushed to fill the void after a disappearance. While no one longed for a funeral, he'd come to believe it infinitely preferable to its alternative, living with the ache of never knowing whether the one you loved—or hoped to love—would be in your arms again. Hope had failed Dana; it would probably fail Susan Moore.
    "And you want me to find him, or at least find out what happened," Cade said, figuring it was time to cut to the chase.
    "Yes, that's exactly what I want."
    Cade drained the last of his coffee, cold now, like the leads in this case. Colder yet was his desire to begin a fruitless search for another missing child, risk another failure.
    "I'm sorry." He stood. "I can't help you. Besides," he gestured to Stan, "it looks as if you already have the best man for the job." His skeptical side knew there was a chance Stan had been free-loading off Susan's guilt and grief these many years, but watching him with her, his gut told him no. "If he's come up empty, I'd probably do the same."
    Stan rose, towered over him, giving him that weird small-man feeling he'd experienced earlier. "I've been on this case for what seems like forever, Harding. Took over after the third guy Susan hired got himself hit by a truck—and, yes, you can take that literally," he said, lifting a believe-it-or-not brow. "Since then, I've run down more blind alleys than I can count. Only one good thing has come out of it." He nodded at Susan. "Meeting this fine lady. But I'm tapped out. Plus, Susan thinks it's time for a different approach, and she believes you're it. You being into all that, uh, psychological stuff."
    Cade knew he meant criminal profiling, the cross between art and science with the dubious reputation. Airy-fairy crap, his first sergeant called it. Maybe so, but it had taken him eight years to get that stuff in his head, and an equal number putting it in the heads of hundreds of listless students.
    Stan added, "Susie here, she wants one last kick at the can, before she calls it quits. Me? I want what she wants." Stan gave him a hard stare, intimating he should feel the same way.
    He didn't. He wanted to be left alone. He had a house in Pullman to move out of and a condo in downtown Seattle to move into. He had a new life to get started on.
    A life without Dana...
    "I'm a teacher, not a cop, Brenton," he said. "Definitely on the sidelines. There's a thousand guys with better qualifications."
    Stan pulled out his wallet again, withdrew a folded piece of paper. "Professor of Criminalistics, specializing in juvenile behavior. Two-year sabbatical to work hands-on with Seattle problem youth at request of the mayor's office. Chair, federal committee on youth crime. Successful negotiator in high-profile kidnapping case involving missing teen—"
    "You did your homework," Cade said.
    "Some."
    "All that was a while back." And the successes paled when compared to his singular, very personal, failure.
    "And you were a cop. For three years." Stan put the paper he'd been citing back in his wallet, his hands on his hips. "Susan's asking you to take a look, give an opinion. That's all."
    Cade looked at the two aging lovers—and he'd decided they were definitely lovers. Susan's eyes were wide, expectant. Stan's were judgmental and pissed off.
    Cade turned to Susan, genuinely puzzled. "Why now?" he asked. "After all these years, why ask me now?"
    "Mainly because I didn't know, until your mother's funeral, that you could help. It was your wife who told me what you did, how successful you were. She was very proud of you, you know." She paused. "As for your mother? Whenever I asked about you, she said very little, other than you'd 'taken off and left her alone, just like your father."
    Cade might have protested, except for the glint of understanding in Susan's eyes, an understanding that no doubt came from years of